


upon waking

by moneypennies



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post 6x05, Protective Bellamy, josephine ran around in clarkes body and shes gotta deal with it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 08:29:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19081303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moneypennies/pseuds/moneypennies
Summary: Clarke woke with her head screaming with pain and light. Her last memory, of Russell’s face hovering above hers, was so fresh it was seconds ago. Her vision was still splotchy, the purple undulating haze over her vision popping as she heaved in breath. Arms held hers locked back behind her, she felt pressure on her shins from someone pressing her down and holding her in place. She blinked down hard and tried to clear her line of sight, and slightly rough, calloused hands pushed her wet hair back and pulled her chin up.“Clarke?” Bellamy. She let out a heavy shuddering breath as his familiar face came into view. “Clarke, please,”***a one-shot what if story post 6x05 and josephine taking over clarke's body. lots of feelings on all sides, and what I think clarke would actually be feeling if someone walked around in her skin. it's short, it's fluffy, it's a hurt/comfort emotional ride. I couldn't get it out of my head, so here you go.





	upon waking

**Author's Note:**

> hope you all like, I couldn't get this one out of my head and had to get it down.  
> also quick note - there's a scene in clarke's bedroom here where it is discussed that that is where she and cillian had their night together. I think from the show it's pretty clear that it's his bedroom, but i'm changing that using some creative license for angst purposes.

  Clarke woke with her head screaming with pain and light. Her last memory, of Russell’s face hovering above hers, was so fresh it was seconds ago. Her vision was still splotchy, the purple undulating haze over her vision popping as she heaved in breath. Arms held hers locked back behind her, she felt pressure on her shins from someone pressing her down and holding her in place. She blinked down hard and tried to clear her line of sight, and slightly rough, calloused hands pushed her wet hair back and pulled her chin up.

               “Clarke?” Bellamy. She let out a heavy shuddering breath as his familiar face came into view. “Clarke, please,”

               For a moment she thought only a few moments had passed, Bellamy had known Russell kidnapped her after her night with Cillian and intervened. She had never been infected with Josephine, her mind was clear, she was fine, it was just another in a long line of near-death experiences that she narrowly avoided. But she wasn’t wearing the blue dress.

               Lifting her eyes, she narrowed in on Madi, she was the one holding onto Clarke’s legs. Clarke’s brain felt like it was working overtime to keep up with what she was seeing, Madi dressed in a thick, light blue medical gown, a line of black blood streaked on her right temple. Her breath was leveling out, and the hands that had so tightly held her arms back started to release.

               “Clarke, please tell me you can hear me,” Bellamy smoothed her sweat slick hair back again and pulled her eyes to his, “is it you?”

               “Bellamy?” Clarke heard her own voice and it startled her, softer and more frightened than she would have remembered.

               “Oh my God,” he pulled her into a tight embrace, his wide palm cupped against the back of her head, his face tucked down in curve between her neck and shoulder.

               “Make some room!” Abby’s voice came from somewhere behind them, “I need to examine her right now,”  
               Clarke’s fingers tightened on Bellamy’s shoulders.

               “Give her some space, Bellamy,” Abby tugged at him, “now.”

               “Mom?” Clarke looked up but kept her arms gripping Bellamy’s as they pulled apart.

               “Hey honey, it’s us, we need to move quickly,” Abby came in fast, small pen light in hand to examine her pupillary responses.

               “What is going on?” Clarke looked between Bellamy and her mother.

               “You haven’t been yourself lately,” Abby tried.

               “Madi,” Clarke reached to the side with one arm to find her daughter, “Are you okay? What did they do to you?”

               “Nothing, nothing,” Madi assured her, “Bellamy found me in time,”

               Clarke’s eyes closed momentarily in relief, her fingers tightening on Madi’s hand. “Thank you,” Clarke murmured, and Bellamy nodded tightly in response.

               “Clarke, what do you remember?” Abby asked, leaning slightly back from her to give her a little breathing room.

               Clarke shifted upwards into a better sitting position and took quick stock of the room around her. Madi, Bellamy, and Abby to her front, Gaia had been the person at her back, and Murphy was a few feet away closer to the door of the lab. Russell was a few feet away, leaning against another medical table. She started at the sight of him and shuffled backwards until her back hit the wall, she felt the back of her neck, coated in sticky black blood. “What is he doing here?”

               “Clarke, it’s okay, it’s okay,” Abby assured.

               “No, you don’t understand, we can’t trust him! He did this! He put that thing in my head!” The images of Russell’s eyes inches from hers flashed in her brain. _We’ll be at peace._

               Bellamy was the first to move closer, still low to her on the ground, his hands up turned to try and show there was no threat, “Clarke,” he met her eyes and reached out to her, “we made a deal for your life, he helped us take the chip out. We don’t trust him, but we needed him for this,”

               “How long was I gone?”

               “Do you remember anything?” It scared her when she realized Bellamy’s voice was tight, choked like he was close to crying. She had never ever seen him like that, not once in all the things they had ever done.

               “How long, Bellamy?”

               “Three weeks,” he admitted, “It’s been three weeks since the party and I lost track of you.”

               Clarke exhaled and felt her throat grow tight, “What happened?”

               “We’ll tell you everything, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, but let’s get you and Madi out of here first.” Bellamy reached for her, not quite touching her but needing her to make the move forward.

               Clarke reached forwards, gripping Bellamy’s forearm and looking past him as they stood to find Madi. She moved forward, pulling Madi into a tight hug, but her eyes never leaving Russell.

               “May I have her back now, please?” Russell extended his hand and Clarke watched as Gaia moved forward, dropping the blue chip into his hand.

               “You’ll leave us alone.” Bellamy said, coming to move towards Clarke’s side, his hand finding the spot between her shoulder blades and pressing lightly enough to let her know this was okay, he was handling this for them. “You gave us Clarke, and we gave you Josephine back. We could have just as easily destroyed that chip, but we are done with our people dying and we are done with killing yours.”

               “I will honor my word, Bellamy.” Russell nodded, holding the chip with his daughter’s consciousness close, “Josephine is misguided in some of her methodology,” he ignored the light scoff that Abby made and continued, “but I will find her a suitable willing host, from my own people if they so wish it.”

               “Immortality doesn’t exist,” Bellamy replied, “not when you have to kill someone else to achieve it.”

               “We’ll have to agree to disagree here, but we gave you what you wanted.”

               Bellamy nodded once and gestured to Murphy who swung his gun forwards towards Russell, trained on him as the group backed out of the room. Bellamy stayed firmly between Clarke and Russell, backing out of the room with her behind him, his eyes locked with his, “We’ll honor the agreement if you let us find our own way in peace.”

               “Understood.”

               Clarke’s hands were shaking but she followed the direction of the group, winding her way out of the Sanctum chamber tunnels until they were back on the other side. When they finally hit the last door to the outside, she realized it was night and thankfully there didn’t seem to be many members of Sanctum milling around the area.

               “Madi,” Clarke murmured as Bellamy steered them towards the medical quarters, “what did they do to you?”

               “They found out I’m a nightblood,” she replied, “Russell’s wife, that woman,” she shuddered slightly, “she tried to put one of their Primes in my head too, but it didn’t work and Russell made a deal with everyone in exchange for our lives.”

               “What’s the deal?”

               “Abby teaches them how to make night bloods.”

               “What?” Clarke’s voice raised and Madi put a warning hand on her arm as they walked, “It’s too risky! People could die, I was lucky it didn’t kill me!”

               “We’ll run controlled tests, Clarke,” Abby replied simply, “this is how our people survive.”

               “What else are they giving us?” Clarke asked flatly.

               “The resources to build our own Sanctum, as long as we relocate and build our own space to bring our people down they will have no reason to harm us. We will give them the skills they need to keep their Primes alive, and they will give us the skills to survive here. They won’t harm any of our people anymore and we won’t harm theirs.” Abby stated simply.

               Clarke opened her mouth to say more but she was too exhausted to argue, she had missed too much to feel like she could understand what had happened. She wanted to sleep, but a deep part of her never wanted to close her eyes again.

               As they crossed the threshold into the small medical bay that Abby had been given access to Clarke felt the harsh fluorescents burning her eyes. “I just want to check over Madi quickly,” Abby pulled Madi towards a medical table and gestured for her to hop up, “I’ll want to run tests on your brain function, Clarke, I have no idea what the effects of having Josephine in your head so long would have done.”

               “Mom,” Clarke pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and sighed, “I think I’m fine,”

               “We’ll see about that,” Abby looked up and saw her daughter’s weary face and haggard appearance, “but I imagine you’ll want to rest first. That’s shouldn’t be a problem.”

               There was silence amongst the group for a few moments while Madi was checked over and Abby hummed over a few vitals. Clarke waited, tense to find out if Madi was going to be alright, but from the account it didn’t sound as if Simone had gotten very far in harming her.

               “I think you’re going to be just fine, Madi,” Abby nodded and turned back to the group, “and I think no matter what we need to stay on our guard until they prove they will uphold the deal.”

               “I’ll stay with Madi at all times,” Gaia nodded, “they won’t be able to get to her.”

               Clarke nodded and gave Madi a quick hug, “I’ll be on my guard too,”

               She finally let her eyes come back to Bellamy. He and Murphy had been on guard the entire walk, silent with tense jaws and nervous trigger fingers. It felt very much like the early days of the Dropship when they didn’t know what was behind any single tree.

               “I need some rest,” Clarke admitted, “but first I’d like to know what happened the past three weeks.”

               “I think you should get some rest.” Bellamy cleared his throat, “but we can explain everything later,”           

               Clarke sighed and nodded, “is my room still safe?”

               “Yes, yeah, it should be. I’ll come with you to check it out though,” Bellamy moved towards the door quickly and she could have sworn she caught Murphy deeply rolling his eyes.

               “Good to have you back,” Murphy finally piped up, “no matter what our shit is, it was creepy when you were acting like a prepped up sorority girl with a God complex.”

               Clarke grimaced, “Oh God,”

               Murphy cracked a low smile and swung his gun loose back over his shoulder before stepping out into the Sanctum night air.

               “Madi, stay with Gaia, stay safe.” Clarke pressed a kiss to her daughter’s forehead, “We’ll talk more tomorrow,”

               “I’m so glad you’re back, Clarke.” Madi admitted, pressing her eyes closed tightly and leaning into her.

               “Me too, kid.”

               After a beat they separated, and Clarke made her way back towards the door, to a waiting Bellamy. As they started walking she broke the silence, “How bad was it? How bad was Josephine?”

               “What do you mean?” Bellamy turned to look at her

               “I can’t remember anything,” she breathes, “not a single thing, and I’m terrified of what she did walking and talking around in my skin.”

               “She scared the hell out of me is what she did,” Bellamy admitted, “but it doesn’t matter now, you’re okay and we’re going to find a way to finally survive down here.”

               Her quarters were fast approaching and as they got closer to the doors, Clarke’s chest got tighter and tighter. A foot or so before them, her feet stopped moving. Her mouth was incredibly dry, her hands tense and clammy.

               “Clarke?” he questioned, “You okay?”

               It felt like two hours ago that she had been finally letting loose with Cillian. Moving on and getting some actual relaxation, letting someone new in after the mess that was her love life on Earth. The moment that he drugged her was the moment she had felt real and deep fear, this man had taken advantage of her, lied to her, and planned to kidnap and use her for a zealot’s cause. “I don’t know if I can go in there,”

               “Okay,” Bellamy nodded, “I’ll check it out first, just stay here and keep your eyes up.”

               Clarke nodded and waited, watching him click the safety off his gun and nudge open her door with the front muzzle. He cleared the apartment systematically, checking underneath her bed, in the closet, the side bathroom, the balcony. It was totally empty, it looked like Clarke had gotten up that morning and rushed out – but it wasn’t really Clarke and he wondered how foreign it would all feel to her.

               “You’re good to come in, we’re clear.”

               She hesitated but gripped her fists tight together and walked forward.

               The room was shocking in its subtle differences, and Clarke felt her head spin and her stomach lurch. Nothing was as she left it except the messy state of the bed, but even then, the covers were pulled to the wrong side.

               “It’s okay,” she heard Bellamy murmur, “I’ll stay for a while until you get settled again.”

               “I feel like I have whiplash, Bell,” it had been years since she’d used that nickname, and even when she had used it in the past it was few and far between. It had always been Octavia’s name for him, and hearing it again made his chest ache.

               “Come here,” he walked towards her and gently tugged her forward to the dining table and eased her to sit down, “I know this is crazy for you.”

               “You have no idea,”

               “What happened that night?” Bellamy asked, “I lost track of you at the party, but I saw you go away with the doctor and I assumed,” he cleared his throat, “I assumed you were blowing off some steam but the next time I saw you it wasn’t you anymore. Did he do this to you?”

               Clarke shook her head, “Not exactly,”

               “Not… exactly,” he mulled over the words, “I haven’t seen him that night, I tried to look for him to ask him what happened to you when you were clearly Josephine, but he disappeared.”

               “He killed himself here,” she gestured to the spot on her floor, “I guess they cleaned him up too.”

               Bellamy leaned forwards and brushed his hands gently along the sides of her face, an act of intimacy that he couldn’t stop himself from doing again and again to assure himself it was her inside of there, she wasn’t lost anymore or gone forever. He kept figuring out ways to get her back and every time it left him feeling like a parched man in a sudden desert oasis. “Please tell me,” he murmured.

               Clarke felt her eyes welling, her vision blurring and she softly slipped one hand under his and brought it down to their laps and entwined their fingers. She kept her eyes solidly staring at that spot while she spoke. “We left the party, and we came back here. We spent some time together and you know, he seemed like a good guy, someone like us and I don’t know, he kind of reminded me of how it used to be before things got so complicated.” She swallowed, “But after, he started talking about the Primes. He’s was a follower of The Children of Gabriel, and he was only interested in the night bloods. He was stalking us, trying to find out which ones of us had night blood so he could take us through the shield and give us to them.”

               His fingers tensed on hers and his thumb smoothed along the back of her hand, encouraging her forwards. She didn’t want to look up just yet but she could guess the expression on his face, she had seen it before.

               “I tried to run, but he shot me with a dart, a paralytic. He was going to take me through the shield, but Russell’s men arrived. Cillian killed himself before he could be taken hostage. He said, ‘Death to the Primes’ before he died. And Russell’s men took me, and then he saw an opportunity to have his daughter back using me. There’s a ritual that they follow, an order to the resurrection of the Primes in some way, but it looks like they have seen less and less night blood births and they didn’t want to wait any longer. So he put the chip in my head, but instead of going to the City of Light I guess I just went to sleep. And then I woke up, and that’s it.”

               Silence stretched between them for a few moments before Bellamy stood and stepped away from her, pacing across the room and running his hands through his hair. She watched him patiently, but eventually he stopped, his eyes ghosting over the bed before he turned back, “He manipulated you,”

               Clarke’s mouth dropped open slightly but she nodded, “Yeah, yeah, I guess he did.”

               “I wish he was still alive so I could kill him.” Bellamy’s jaw tightened. The thought of him injecting her with the paralytic right here, right after Clarke had let herself be vulnerable made his head ache.

               “Me too,” she admitted, “but what’s done is done,”

               Bellamy said nothing but stared at her.

               “Are you going to tell me what she did the past three weeks or do I have to ask around?” Clarke tried to crack a joke but knew it was falling flat even as it left her mouth.

               He swallowed, looked her up and down, and nodded to himself before he said it. “I thought you were dead, Clarke. Not like Pramfaiya when I just imagined all the ways you had burned up in that death wave, but right in front of me you were gone. You looked me in the eyes and you were dead, Clarke.”

               “I’m not dead,” she assured.

               “I know that, but it doesn’t make looking into your eyes and having a stranger stare back and tell me Clarke Griffin doesn’t live there anymore any less painful,” he moved a step towards her and then chose to push back the chair and sit back down, “we broke into that lab while you were Josephine. Murphy, Jordan, you, and me. And we watched videos of their lab experiments, of putting their Prime chips into unwilling subjects and the scientists were very clear about what happened to the hosts – they were very clear about the fact that their consciousness would have been killed by the procedure. So I looked at you, and something else stared back at me and I was sure you were dead.”

               “Bellamy, I’m so sorry,” she pulled herself closer, reaching for him across the little space between them to rest one hand on his thigh and one on his shoulder, “I’m so sorry, I’m right here, I should have never-“

               “Clarke you didn’t do anything, you were tricked. You were kidnapped, you were drugged, there was nothing you could have done to prevent what was done to you.”

               “I still-“

               “Stop.” Bellamy shook his head, “I’m telling you because you asked, not to make you feel worse about this whole situation.”

               Clarke nodded and relaxed her hands, still resting them where she could reach and nodded for him to continue.

               “Josephine was interesting,” he smirked for a moment then shook his head, “she was cold and calculating, didn’t care about any of the people that were dying, and she kept trying to convince us that if this was their way of life we should just pack it in and relax.”

               “That doesn’t sound like me.”

               “No, it certainly didn’t,” Bellamy leaned back in his chair and smoothed a hand over his face, “she didn’t understand Trig, and that’s when I knew for sure. I spoke to her in Trig and she looked at me with the blankest expression I’ve ever seen.”

               Clarke was quiet while he shifted and sighed. It seemed like he was trying to weigh what parts of the last three weeks would be relevant to tell her.

               “You- She paralyzed me,” Bellamy finally said, “and took off on a crusade trying to convince Murphy to become and night blood to reincarnate her dead Prime boyfriend.”

               “Murphy?” Clarke balked, “she went after… Murphy?”

               “Yeah,” Bellamy nodded, “but obviously that was a dead giveaway that something was wrong because I have never once in my life considered you’d be interested in John Murphy.”

               Clarke laughed then, it wasn’t really a funny situation but still the idea of her hitting on Murphy was enough to make her forget a moment that this was the most ridiculously ludicrous thing to ever happen to her.  “That would have been a sight,”

               “Mm,” Bellamy nodded, “but eventually it became public knowledge that you weren’t you anymore, and that Josephine was ready to do anything to get the Primes back to where the had once been. There were negotiations, I may or may not have broken Russell’s nose trying to get some information,”

               “Good.” Clarke smirked.

               “Josephine said and did some things that I’m sure you wouldn’t want to know about,” Bellamy sighed, “but at the risk of someone else saying something to you outside of this room, do you want me to tell you?”

               Clarke shifted, realizing now that things were more serious that she had anticipated, “I think you should,”

               “Okay,” he signed and stood, crossing to the back of the room and filling up two glasses with a non-descript Sanctum version of beer. Clarke’s fingers knotted together as she watched him, and he came back to sit with her at the table. “Clarke, I want you to know something before I tell you,”

               “Bellamy, what did I do?”

               “ _You_ didn’t do anything,” Bellamy leaned towards her and pulled her hands apart, threading their fingers together tightly and giving her a reassuring squeeze, “You didn’t do anything. You were murdered, Clarke, and we all fought like hell to get you back. But the person who killed you was wearing your face, so I think you should know what happened before you go back out there.”

               “I’ll be honest,” Clarke murmured, “you’re scaring me.”

               “I’m sorry, I just wanted you to be prepared and I wanted you to know that none of us blame you for what Josephine did while she was in your body.”

               “Okay,” Clarke nodded and gestured for him to continue.

               “After Josephine realized getting John involved would go nowhere, and when my paralytic wore off, she went on a little bit of a rampage. Abby refused to help her with the night bloods once she realized what had happened, and Josephine held her and Jackson hostage. She shot Jackson,”

               Clarke’s face fell instantly, “Is he…?”

               “No, no he’s recovering,” Bellamy shook his head, “he was shot in the leg so he just has to give it time to recover. He’ll be okay.” He let this part of the story sink in before continuing, “Josephine was pretty desperate to find a host for her Prime boyfriend, and for one of her best friends. She orchestrated Madi’s kidnapping with Simone, and she also started seeing one of the night blood men from Sanctum who was next in line to take one of the Prime chips.”

               Clarke swallowed, “When you say seeing?”

               “Clarke, I don’t know what happened behind closed doors but I saw Josephine and this guy around Sanctum together and something was going on.” Bellamy said honestly, “I tried my best to keep it from happening, I promise, I tried to control the situation but Russell finally snapped and put us in isolation. He didn’t want us organizing against him and trying to take you back. I’m not sure what happened during that last week while we were confined, but eventually Russell came to get us. He didn’t agree with Simone and Josephine using Madi since she’s under 18 and he said he was concerned with Josephine’s state of mind. He got us out so we could rescue Madi and try to resurrect you.”

               The silence stretched on for minutes as Clarke mulled over what he had said. She stood suddenly, “I have to,” she stepped away from him, their hands breaking apart, “I’ll be right back. I just have to….”

               “Clarke,”

               “Please don’t go, I just need a minute to myself,” she said backing towards the bathroom, “but please, just stay okay?”

               “I’ll be here,” he promised.

               Clarke bolted, pushing the door to the bathroom shut tightly and cranking the shower on before falling to her knees and losing her stomach. Her hands were shaking, and the smell of bile made her eyes water as she leaned her forehand against her arms. Josephine had taken her over and used her body without any abandon or question. She felt sick to her stomach and heaved again.

               After a few moments crouched over the toilet, she got to her feet, steadying herself against the sink. She saw her reflection in the mirror then, for the first time since the night of the party. She had thought that night she looked pretty, beautiful even. The look that Bellamy had given her had sent a thrill through her down to her knees, and even though she knew he was dating Echo, a part of her still wanted him to look, to want her.

               Now as she looked at herself she didn’t know who she was seeing. Her face was sallow, and she wore more makeup than she had ever seen on herself. Eyeliner done up and blue sparkling glitters across her lids. Her hair had wayward streaks of blues and purples, and she wore a mix of her own clothing with Sanctum accessories, layered jeweled necklaces. She began to breathe heavily, this body didn’t belong to her.

               “Clarke?” Bellamy’s voice came through the door and she jumped, “Are you all right?”

               She hesitated, a huge piece of her wanted to tell him to get away from her. She wanted to wallow, soak in the shower all night and scrub her skin raw. But her throat started to close up, her breath was coming more shallow with each inhale and tears were filling her eyes. She did not know what to do or what to say so in a moment of absolute selfish need, she ripped the door open.

               Bellamy was standing at the door, hands on either side of the door jamb and he raised his eyes to meet hers. He started moving towards her instantly, cupping her face and looking her over, “Clarke, what’s wrong?”

               She let out a small hiccup of a sob and leaned forward into his chest, “Bellamy, look at me,”

               “Yeah?” he murmured, “what’s wrong, Clarke, you have to talk to me,”  

               She sniffed and tried to right herself, leaning back and meeting his eyes, “I don’t look like me anymore,”

               His face faltered and he took a small step closer towards her, his arms coming around her but his eyes never leaving her face, “that stuff is all just temporary,” he murmured, “you’ll get cleaned up, we’ll wash that stuff right out of your hair, and you’ll look like yourself, I promise.”

               She knew what he was saying was true, but it didn’t stop from making her chest tighten more, knowing that Josephine walked around in her body and talked to so many people, shot someone, kissed someone, maybe even-

               “Hey,” Bellamy saw her spiraling and caught her eyes again, “hey stay with me, what can  I do?”

               “I need to get this off of me,” Clarke clawed at the necklaces that were tightly secured around her neck, “I need to get it all off of me,”

               “Okay,” Bellamy nodded and smoothed his hands down her sides, “Okay, let me help you, just take a breath for me.”

               Clarke heaved in air and turned away from him, dropping her hands to the sink and holding onto the porcelain with a white knuckled grip while Bellamy repositioned himself behind her. He pushed away the fringe of her hair and started in on the necklace clasps, letting them fall one by one into the sink below. As the last one fell, he smoothed his fingers down her neck and onto the edge of her jacket, easing it off her shoulders to reveal her bare arms.

               “Oh,” he murmured

               “Oh?” she looked up to meet his eyes in the mirror and then zeroed in on her upper left arm. Josephine had tattooed her. An array of thin line geometrics and dot work wound their way from just below her elbow to mid-way up her upper arm. “Of course she did,”

               “You can get it removed,” Bellamy nodded quickly.

               “How?” she scowled.

               “Well,” he sighed, “I don’t exactly know, but I know it used to be possible.”

               “I can’t think about that right now,” she blinked back tears, “I honestly can’t,”

               He nodded and reached past her, turning the hot water on in the sink and tapping her between the shoulders, “Lean over,”

               She looked at him with confusion for a moment before he turned and reached into her shower, grabbing a bottle of shampoo. “I’ve got you,” he eased his hand over her shoulder and up the back of her neck gently. She leaned over the sink, letting the hot water wash over the back of her head and run down into the water.

               In soft silence Bellamy wet his hands, thoroughly wet Clarke’s hair, and started to lather it. Within moments the colors started to run out from her blonde hair and down the drain. He had seen a lot of the younger people of Sanctum experimenting with these colored hair strips, mostly chalk based, and easily washed out. He was glad that unlike the tattoo, he could at least take this away for her. It took a few minutes to get it fully removed, and he had to later it a few times before letting the water run clear again.

               Turning off the water and grabbing a larger hand towel he wrapped her hair, squeezing out some of the excess water and letting her stand back up.

               “See?” He gestured to the mirror, “better already.”

               Clarke let out a shaky breath and turned the water back on before reaching for some makeup remover and scrubbing the black and blue eyeliner off her eyes. She focused intently on stripping every little bit of product from her skin before splashing cool water across her face and patting herself dry. “Better,” she nodded.

               They were quiet for a moment, Bellamy’s eyes resting on her face and Clarke staring at the unceremoniously stick and poked tattoo.

               “I need some sleep,” she admitted finally.

               “You need rest,” he nodded and moved out of her way, clearing his throat and drying his hands on his pants, “I’ll just uh- I’ll get out of your way.”

               “Bellamy,” she looked across the room at him, still standing in the light of the bathroom, “would you please stay with me?”

               He felt his resolve crumbling quickly, he didn’t want to push her or rush her or make her feel anything she didn’t want to after three weeks of being gone, but looking at her now he could barely breathe. Three weeks of feeling like Clarke had died again without a chance to say goodbye, or a chance to try and save her, had knotted his insides like nothing else in his life. Staring into her face and watching Josephine’s sly smile over him had shaken him to the core. He looked her over, her wet knotted hair, her pink splotchy face from crying and rubbing her eyes raw threw a sucker punch to his gut. “Of course I’ll stay,”

               He watched her shoulders drop in relief and she sighed, dropping the towel on the bathroom floor and flicking off the light before walking back to the center of her room and sighing into her hands. “I just don’t think I can sleep in this room alone, after, you know, after everything,” he watched her as she stared at the spot on the floor he could only imagine Cillian had died on.

               “I get it,” he nodded, and he did. He didn’t want to walk out of this room and come back tomorrow only to find someone else in Clarke’s place again. He was afraid if he let her out of his sight that’s just what would happen. “I’d feel better keeping an eye on you anyways,”

               Clarke smiled and nodded, turning back towards her bed and straightening out the covers. Without looking back at Bellamy she unbuttoned her utility pants, kicked off her boots, and stripped down to her underwear and tank top. She immediately pulled herself into bed and pulled the covers on top of her.

               Bellamy cleared his throat, a little red in the cheeks, and settled in her chair.

               “What are you doing?” she murmured, sleep already evident in her voice.

               “Keeping watch,”

               “You can come over here,” Clarke sighed, “we’ve been friends for almost a decade now, I think we can handle sleeping without it being weird.”

               He wasn’t so sure he could, but he nodded and sat down on the other side of the bed, closest to the door. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,”

               “You of all people couldn’t make me uncomfortable if you tried, Bellamy,” Clarke murmured. “As long as you’re okay with this, so am I.”

               “Okay,” he nodded, kicking off his boots, shucking his jacket, and settling down on top of the covers. “I think I’ll stay up for a bit while you fall asleep.

               She nodded, her eyes already drooping closed, “Bellamy?”

               “Yeah, Princess?” the old nickname slipped out without even realizing.

               She smiled at it, but murmured, “she’s everywhere around me,”

               Bellamy’s heart ached, and he eased down in bed a little further, pulling her close to him and letting her lean her head on his chest, “We’ll fix that,” he said simply.

               “I trust you,” she nodded and let out a shaky breath, “thank you for staying.”

               “Of course,”

               “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, I don’t want to make Echo,”

               Bellamy shook his head and smoothed a hand over her hair, “Echo and I aren’t-“ he let out a long breath, “we’re not a thing anymore, I couldn’t keep it up and she’s not happy. We ended things,”

               “Oh,”

               “Yeah,” he swallowed, “so no, I’m not uncomfortable, I don’t care if Echo feels any way about this, and honestly after everything we’ve been through, and after watching you die twice? You’re going to have trouble getting me to leave your side.”

               Clarke bit down on her lip, tears welling in her eyes but she kept her voice controlled, “I think I’d like to have you back by my side again,”

               “I don’t think that’s ever going to change,” he murmured.

               “I’d like that,” she said quietly

               A few moments passed and Bellamy tightened his hold on her, “I’ll never let anyone hurt you again, Clarke, I promise.”

               “I know,” she nodded, “I know you won’t,”

               “Just try and sleep, now,” he sighed, and pressed a soft kiss to her hair, “I’m not going anywhere.”

               Clarke felt her body relax, the tension rise out of her shoulders and her fingers relaxed from gripping Bellamy’s side. Moments later, sleep would claim her. Moments later, she would fall softly into rest, and Bellamy would stay, eyes trained on the door, listening to the rise and fall of her breath and the restful beat of her heart.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all liked! :) I am going to be working on my longer fic again soon, but something about Bellamy and the way he looked at Clarke at the end of 6x05??? I couldn't not write this.


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